Thought I'd share my experience in fighting Candida and how I managed to avoid the Herxheimer effect completely by healing the intestinal walls first and fighting the candida afterwards. Hopefully this can be helpful for some people!
I have been fighting Candida since January 2009 (eight or so months), mostly comprising of skin problems which are noted in several places on this forum as being common for men suffering from candida overgrowth. I suspect my overgrowth came from a poor diet. At my work, we have free drinks, so in summer last year I was consuming a bottle of Coke a day. Sure, I was avoiding the aspartame, but that's a truckload of sugar and quite a poisonous beverage to consume regardless. Add to this, regular intake of pasta and white rice. Hello itchy, inflammed armpits.
I have in the past suffered from itchy, inflammed armpits here and there, and simply fixed it with one or two applications of a cortisone-based cream. Only this time, it came back with a vengeance, to the point where I woke up with my armpits covered in what I thought was sweat - only there was no sweat odour. It would stain white clothes with a straw-colour and despite many showers would continue to excrete and stain my clothes. Whatever it was, it wasn't good. I was prescribed a cream and a round of antibiotics. Hello candida takeover.
As soon as the cream and antibiotics finished, the problem got worse. And spread to other parts of my body, including my inner thighs, groine, inside the elbows, neck and face. I had red skin around my eyes that I first thought was sunburn (from falling asleep on a plane after returning from a holiday). After a few days, the sunburn sensation faded but the redness did not. It remained there for TWO WEEKS before becoming dry. I suffered from incredibly dry (and in some places itchy) skin. So by March this year, I recalled skimming over a thread on Candida in this forum and decided to give it a read. I don't know why, but I thought this could be the problem. Who knows how many years it could've taken me to figure out the cause if it wasn't for this forum!
I spent two months on the Candida diet, occasionally attacking the Candida and suffering severe Herxheimer effects. My friends thought I was making it worse - despite the many times I explained what die-off was. The moment I attempted to go after the candida, everything got worse. Even trying weak attacks for just a day would cause problems. Problems that rendered me a horror to look at in public (which is a problem when you travel through the city to work every day). The candida diet gave me more energy, but actually killing off the candida was frustrating. There was clearly too much of it and exploding the candida cells was flaring up my existing skin disorder.
I visited several naturopaths (who knew less than I did about candida, unfortunately) before finding one who specialised in candida and detox. While still following the candida diet as detailed here, I was off to a good start and had already developed healthy eating habits. What this particular naturopath helped me do was avoid the Herxheimer reaction completely and get rid of my candida without making my skin problems worse. How? I asked her as my jaw literally dropped. Why hadn't I found this on the internet? Had I not looked hard enough?
In a nutshell, the approach is to heal the intestinal walls first. The candida cells have made tiny holes in the walls through which toxins leak. When you traditionally kill off the cells, they explode and fragments of the outer shell passes into the blood stream. (The common belief is that the entire dead candida cell passes through, but the naturopath insisted this is false as the cells are too big to pass through the holes they make.) The outer shell fragments cause the Herxheimer effect. It's a great sign that you're killing off the candida, but 1) kill off too much too fast creates a breeding ground for more candida and 2) you get the nasty die-off symptoms. This alternative approach, however, heals the intestinal walls FIRST, then kills the candida AFTER. So she was basically going about it in the opposite way. I was sceptical at first, but decided to try. I was given SB Pro to dislodge the candida and G-tox Express, a mix of ingredients that heal the intestinal walls.
SB Pro contains Saccharomyces Boulardii 250mg per capsule, which is in effect a friendly yeast that fights Candida. It is much used in France, where they refer to it as the yeast-fighting yeast. It gently dislodges the candida from the intestines, which are then passed out through urine. It is believed that Saccharomyces boulardii is simply more efficient than candida and other unwanted organisms when competing for the space in the intestines, making it valuable for preventing as well as treating candida overgrowth. Another possibility is that Saccharomyces boulardii interferes with the binding of candida and other infectious organisms to cell in the intestines. Either way, the end result is candida gets crowded out. And the key here is that Sacch Boulardii does not kill the candida yeast cells, causing them to explode. So while your intestines are still swiss-cheesed, you're not going to get any nasty cell fragments making your symptoms worse.
G-tox Express claims to support gastrointestinal mucosa, enhance detox and assist in elimination of heavy metals. Alkalises urine and supports elimination of toxins from kidneys. I was given this to heal the holes the candida had punctured in the intestines.
Contains per scoop:
Curcuma longa (Tumeric) extract - 3750mg
Galium aparine (Cleavers) - 3000mg
Glycyrrhiza glabra (Licorice)-deglycrrhized - 2500mg
Spirulina - 2500mg
Aloe vera powder - 2500mg
L-Glutamine - 2000mg
Potassium citrate - 2000mg
Coriandrum sativum (Coriander) - 1000mg
Larch Arabinogalactans - 1000mg
Citrus pectin - 500mg
Fucus vesiculosis (Kelp) powder - 250mg
Zinc sulphate, equivalent to elemental zinc - 15mg.
My intake was:
-G-tox Express 1.5 scoops, twice daily
-SB Pro x1 capsule, twice daily
-Candida diet as detailed in this forum.
After this, I undertook a stool sample, which showed high amounts of yeast and low levels of good bacteria. It looked like candida was winning the war.
Week 4:
Stopped G-tox Express, the intestines should have healed by now.
Weekends (attack phase):
-Parex x2 capsules, twice daily
-Gastro AG 1tsp, twice daily
Weekdays (healing phase):
-SB Pro x1 capsule, twice daily
-Slippery elm x2 capsules, twice daily
-Vitanox x2 capsules daily
Parex helps get rid of intestinal worms and parasites.
Contains:
black walnut (fruit hull dry) 500mg
Chinese wormwood or Qing Hao (herb dry) 400mg
Barberry (root bark dry) 400mg
ginger (rhizome dry) 250mg
gentian lutea (root dry) 200mg
Spanish oregano oil 2mg
cinnamon bark oil 2mg
thyme oil 2mg.
Gastro AG is a prebiotic powder.
Prebiotic arabinogalactans 3000mg, which is equivalent to dry herb Larix occidentalis 37.5g.
Slippery elm helps maintain a healthy lower gastrointestinal tract and helps with leaky gut. Also settles and soothes the digestive system.
In each capsule: 400mg of stem bark powder.
Vitanox protects and maintains healthy capillaries, maintains peripheral circulation and is a potent antioxidant. Also, strangely enough, it contains 12.5mg caffeine. I'm not entirely sure these ingredients were necessary, especially with green tea in it.
Contains:
grape extract (equivalent to dry seed) 6g
turmeric extract (equivalent to dry rhizome) 2g
green tea (extract equivalent to dry leaf) 4.17g
rosemary (extract equivalent to dry leaf) 1g.
7 weeks into this program, my skin problems had been 90% eliminated. The last 10% were to prove stubborn and difficult to get rid of. Typical of candida, from what I've read.
I stopped Parex and SB Pro and was re-introduced to G-tox Express and introduced to a new supplement:
-Ultra Flora Restore x2, twice daily
Per capsule of live organisms: lactobacillus acidophilus 11.5 billion organisms, bifidobacterium lactis 11.5 billion organisms, lactobacillus rhamnosus 2 billion organisms.
Essentially, it's just a fancy probiotic.
By Week 11, I was given a zinc test. Basically you drink zinc in liquid form and describe the taste. If it tastes foul and disgusting, your zinc levels are good. If it tastes a bit horrible, your zinc levels are low. If it tastes bland, you are extremely deficient in zinc. And it's a downward spiral; the more deficient you are in zinc, the less you absorb, and the more deficient you become. Nice, huh?
I had stopped Gastro AG, Slippery Elm, Vitanox and G-tox Express. Still taking the fancy probiotic, the following supplement dosages were increased to:
-Omega 3 1000mg twice daily
-Vitamin C 1000mg, twice daily (powder form)
-Zinc (equivalent to elemental zinc) 22mg, twice daily (powder form for fast replenishment).
Week 17, skin problems 95% eliminated.
Another zinc test. This time it took about 5 seconds to taste a bit digusting. So my zinc levels are improving, but are certainly not where they should be. I also took a candida blood test. Completely negative. This suggests to me that the levels of candida are so low they are not even registering in my bloodstream. That means my intestinal walls are finally healed - no leaky gut - and there isn't enough candida to make new holes. I doubt I am completely candida-free (free of the mutated candida, I mean), but it looks like I'm on the home stretch.
My current supplements can be purchased anywhere. A good probiotic, plus the zinc, vitamin C and Omega 3 - all of which have been thoroughly discussed in this forum and in particular in the candida threads. The crucial supplements were the G-tox Express, which healed my intestines, and the yeast-fight yeast (Saccharomyces Boulardii), which gently dislodged the candida. If I had to do this again without the help (or expense) of a naturopath, I would source these ingredients and take the appropriate dosage.
Week 23, skin problems 98% eliminated.
All I have to complain about now is dry skin around my eyebrows and a dry scalp, which I have sufferred from since my youth. Everything else has healed up. My naturopath told me that she is certain virtually all skin disorders and problems are directly linked to the gut, because the gut and skin are inextricably linked. If you have a problem or imbalance of flora in your gut, you have a skin problem. She is certain that ezcema and most other skin disorders could be cured at the source by solving problems with the gut. And you know what? I think she's probably right.
After this is completely eliminated and I have good levels of zinc again, the next step is a lactose allergy test from a local dector, then back to the naturopath to detox the liver and kidneys, in that order. It will be nice for once to have a liver that isn't overloaded. And an infrared sauna/blanket and reverse-osmosis water can't hurt either, now can it? ;)
Hope this helps!
